German
Occupation of Serbia and the Kragujevac Massacreby Carl K. Savich
October 18, 2003

Introduction

In
March 1941, the Yugoslav government signed a cooperation treaty with
Nazi Germany, under threat of invasion. Two days later, it was toppled
in a coup. Outraged, Hitler swore
to "wipe Yugoslavia off the map," and delayed the planned invasion
of the USSR for a stopover in the Balkans.

By
all military criteria, "Operation Punishment" was a cakewalk, wiping
out resistance in seven days. Many willing collaborators eagerly
helped the Nazis dismember the dysfunctional state. But within
two months, not one but two resistance movements had sprung up, challenging
the occupation, albeit in different ways.

Nazi
response was harsh. In addition to launching military operations against
the guerrillas, they conducted massive reprisal massacres of civilians
in central Serbia. One of the most notorious such massacres took place
in Kragujevac, in October 1941.

Along
with a brief background of German invasion and occupation, historian
Carl K. Savich analyzes the German policy of terror in Kragujevac,
its impact on the rival resistance forces, and the decision in Nuremberg
that recognized these massacres as crimes against humanity.

This
dark chapter in Balkans history, on its anniversary, offers several
lessons that can be ignored only at great peril. For example, that
an easy conquest does not mean an easy occupation, even with local
help. Or that the harshest reprisals can have the effect of silencing
resistance movements that care about loss of life, but only generate
martyrs for movements that don't. It highlights differences between
the trials at Nuremberg and the "trials" at The Hague. And it reminds
us that however much we would like to think otherwise, some things
have not changed since 1941.


Nebojsa Malic, October 14, 2003

Serbia
was a hotbed of opposition and resistance to the Nazi New Order in
Europe. By the summer of 1941, the first major popular uprising against
German occupation in Europe was launched under the leadership of Serbian
Colonel Draza Mihailovic at Ravna Gora. The uprising threatened the
southern flank of Adolf Hitler's European empire just as German divisions
were invading the USSR.

Hitler
was appalled at this unprecedented act of defiance to the New Order.
Immediately perceiving the danger the Serbian insurrection posed to
German control and the stability of the Balkans, he ordered the rebellion
quelled "by the most rigorous methods".

Pursuant
to these instructions, Chief of the German General Staff Wilhelm Keitel
ordered that for every German occupation soldier killed in Serbia,
a hundred Serbian civilians would be executed, while fifty Serbian
civilians would be killed for every wounded German soldier. This unprecedented
order would result in one of the most brutal massacres of civilians
during World War II, the Kragujevac Massacre, when an estimated 5,000
Serbian civilians were executed.

Kragujevac
became one of the most notorious and tragic events of World War II.
Like the massacres at Lidice, Babi Yar, Oradour, and Nanking, Kragujevac
epitomized the the horrors of war, and the cost of resistance to military
occupation.

Background:
Operation Punishment

In
the spring of 1941, Yugoslavia did its best to avoid a war with Nazi
Germany. Prime Minister Dragisa Cvetkovic and Foreign Minister Alexander
Cincar-Markovic had even signed the Tripartite Pact with Berlin on
March 25, 1941. But on March 27, a group of military officers led
by Air Force General Dusan Simovic overthrew the regency of Prince
Paul and established the underage King Peter II as the titular ruler
of Yugoslavia. The overthrow was preceded by violent anti-German demonstrations
in Belgrade and wide-spread popular antipathy towards a Yugoslav-German
agreement.

Hitler
perceived the coup d'etat as an affront to Germany, and an unacceptable
act of defiance. Even though the new Simovic government requested
a dialogue, Hitler immediately decided on the total destruction of
Yugoslavia as a country.

Under
Directive No. 25, Hitler ordered the invasion of Yugoslavia on March
27, 1941. The invasion of Yugoslavia was known as Operation Punishment
(Fall Strafe), while the planned invasion of Greece was dubbed
Operation Marita. Hitler ordered that Yugoslavia "must be destroyed
as quickly as possible," and announced his plans for the invasion
as follows:

It
is my intention to break into Yugoslavia in the general direction
of Belgrade and southward by a concentric operation from the area
of Rijeka-Graz on the one side and from the area around Sofia on the
other and to give the Yugoslav forces an annihilating blow. In addition
I intend to cut off the extreme southern part of Yugoslavia from the
rest of the country and seize it as a base for the continuation of
the German-Italian offensive against Greece… As soon as sufficient
forces stand ready and the weather situation permits, the ground organization
of the Yugoslav Air Force and Belgrade are to be destroyed by continuous
day and night attacks of the Luftwaffe.

Hitler
also emphasized in this directive the plan to exploit the pro-German
Croats, who had been subjects of Austria-Hungary until World War One,
and use them as a Fifth Column to destroy Yugoslavia. He stated that
"the domestic political tensions in Yugoslavia will be sharpened by
political assurances to the Croats."

The
Axis forces arrayed against Yugoslavia consisted of 24 German divisions
and 1,500 aircraft, 23 Italian divisions, 670 aircraft and naval vessels
which attacked along the Adriatic, and 5 Hungarian divisions. The
total number of Axis divisions was 52, with a total of 2.300 aircraft.
The Yugoslav army could muster 30 under-strength divisions that were
poorly trained, inadequately equipped, and demoralized.

Yugoslavia
was to be attacked by Axis troops based in Austria, Hungary, Romania,
and Bulgaria. The Second Army, commanded by Maximilian von Weichs,
stationed in Klagenfurt, Austria and Barcs, Hungary was to attack
from the north. The German 12th Army, stationed in Bulgaria
under Field Marshal Sigmund Wilhelm List, was to send one element
into Macedonia while another was to press on to Belgrade. The XLI
Panzer Corps, under Georg-Hans Reinhardt, was stationed in Romania
and was to attack Belgrade. Attached to the XLI Panzer Corps was the
2nd Waffen SS Panzer Division "Das Reich," which had been
transferred from southern France to spearhead the attack on Belgrade.
"Das Reich" was an elite formation commanded by SS Oberstgruppenfuehrer
Paul Haussner, known as "Papa Haussner" because he was regarded as
the founder of the Waffen SS (the military branch of the SS).

An
Easy Conquest

Belgrade
was declared an open city, which meant that it was not defended. Yet
the Luftwaffe bombed the city non-stop for three days, destroying
much of the city center and killing some 17,000 Serbian civilians
 men, women, and children.

There
were hardly any Yugoslav troops in Belgrade, making it possible for
the SS Hauptsturmfuehrer Fritz Klingenberg, of the 2nd
Company, SS Motorcycle Reconnaissance Battalion of "Das Reich" to
"capture" Belgrade with one platoon leader, two sergeants, and five
privates. They crossed the Danube on a requisitioned motor boat, and
rode their motorcycles through the streets of Belgrade  unopposed
 to the Yugoslav War Ministry, which they found abandoned. They
raised a Nazi flag over the ministry building, then proceeded to the
German Embassy, where another flag was raised. The mayor of Belgrade
then agreed to turn over the city to prevent further bombing and loss
of life.(1)

Belgrade
was occupied by the 1st Panzer Army under Generaloberst
Ewald von Kleist. Kleist was photographed in front of the Yugoslav
Parliament (Shupshtina) in Belgrade saluting a German tank
commander on April 14.

Germans
casualties in the invasion of Yugoslavia were 151 killed, 392 wounded,
and 15 missing. They captured 337,684 Yugoslav soldiers and 6,028
officers. However, some 300,000 mostly Serb troops escaped into the
mountains and the country-side. They would continue the conflict as
guerrillas.

German
Occupation

Upon
surrender, Yugoslavia was promptly dismembered. Serbia was the only
part where an outright German military government was established.
In fact, Serbia was the only Balkan country that Germany and the Axis
occupied militarily throughout World War II. Why was this so? The
Germans could never control Serbia and the Serbian population by proxy.
Without direct military occupation, Serbia could not be militarily
and politically subdued.

On
April 20, 1941, Field Marshal Walther von Brauchitsch, the Chief of
the German Army High Command (OKH), ordered the establishment of a
military government in German-occupied Serbia. The office of Military
Commander in Serbia was established as the highest authority. He was
subordinate to the Quartermaster General of the OKH, and to the commander
of the German 2nd Army, which occupied Serbia. The main
responsibilities of the Military Commander in Serbia were laid out
in the Dienstanweisung (brief) as follows:

To
safeguard the railroad line between Belgrade and Salonika and the
Danube shipping lanes, to execute the economic orders of Reichsmarshal
Hermann Goering who was the Plenipotentiary of the Four Year Plan,
and to establish and to maintain law and order.

The
first Military Commander in Serbia was Air Force General Helmuth Foerster.
He was replaced in June, 1941 by Antiaircraft Artillery General Ludwig
von Schroeder, who was died in a plane crash a month later, and was
succeeded by Air Force General Heinrich Danckelmann.

In
June 1941, the Germans brought in four under-strength divisions to
garrison Serbia under the command of Artillery General Paul Bader:
the 704th, 714th, 717th, and 718th
, while the Second Army was deployed to the Russian front.

On
June 9, under Directive No. 31, Hitler unified the command structure
by making Wilhelm List the Armed Forces Commander in Southeast Europe,
directly subordinate to the Fuehrer. List was responsible for the
security and the defense of Serbia and Greece, and General Bader was
subordinated to him. List's headquarters was in Thessalonica.

Two
Concepts of Resistance

Following
the German occupation, not one but two guerrilla resistance movements
emerged in Serbia. The Ravna Gora Chetnik movement was led
by Colonel Dragoljub-Draza Mihailovic, loyal to the Yugoslav government-in-exile
in the UK. Mihailovic's guerrillas (known as Chetniks) engaged
in sabotage, but opposed direct attacks on German troops. They considered
such attacks futile from a military standpoint, and not in line with
their objective of laying the groundwork for an Allied invasion of
Yugoslavia that was to occur later in the war. Mihailovic also opposed
attacks on German troops because he did not believe it was worth the
cost in Serbian civilian lives, maintaining it was not worth sacrificing
fifty Serbs for "a single German or a section of railway line." A
veteran of World War I, he also recalled the brutal German reprisals
against Serbian civilians for uprisings in 1915-18.

The
Communist Partisans (partizani) were organized in July, following
the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa). On
3 July 1941, after Joseph Stalin had made a call for Communist resistance
in the occupied countries, Yugoslav Communist leader Josip Broz Tito
convened a meeting of the party Politburo in a suburb of Belgrade.
The following day, Tito issued a proclamation calling for a general
uprising in Serbia.

The
Partisans were not indigenous to Serbia. Tito was a Croat-Slovene
Roman Catholic born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He spoke with
a Croatian accent, and did not know Serbia well. He had served in
the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I, when he was captured
by the Russians in 1915. In 1918, he joined the Red Army and fought
in its ranks until 1920. By 1937, he became the head of the Yugoslav
Communist Party (KPJ).

Unlike
Mihailovic's Chetniks, the Partisans wanted to create as much
bloodshed and carnage and destruction as possible. Tito saw the war
as an opportunity not only to fight the enemies of the USSR, but to
destroy the antebellum Yugoslavia and arrange a Communist takeover.
He would win the sympathy of the general populace by demonstrating
that the Partisans had liberated the country from German occupation.
This approach was put to practice in July of 1941, as the Partisans
seized the western Serbian town of Uzice, and immediately set up a
so-called "Uzice republic."

Thus
the forces under Mihailovic and Tito were fighting under two opposing
concepts of guerrilla resistance.

Insurgency
in Serbia

The
Serbian population was, nevertheless, anxious to drive out the German
occupiers. The insurgency had overwhelming popular support in Serbia.
Both the forces under Mihailovic and Tito were involved in the rebellion,
even cooperating against the Germans and engaging in joint actions.
Because German combat troops had been redeployed to the Russian front,
Serbia was occupied by under-strength garrison troops; the three infantry
divisions and the German police were unable to suppress the Serbian
insurgency. The occupation of Serbia was severely threatened. On September
4, the 125th Infantry Regiment was sent to Serbia from Greece.

Following
Mihailovic's meeting with Partisan representatives in August, Tito
met with Mihailovic for the first time on September 19. They agreed
not to attack each other, but no real agreement was reached on cooperation,
because of their conflicting concepts of resistance. Another meeting
between Tito and Mihailovic took place on October 27, at Brajici near
Uzice. Captain D.T. "Bill" Hudson of the British mission to Draza
Mihailovic was present at the Brajici meeting. Again, Mihailovic and
Tito were unable to reach an agreement to cooperate against the German
forces.

Meanwhile,
guerrillas attacked and sabotaged communication and transportation
lines. German troops were tortured, mutilated, and killed. The German
response was to attempt to suppress the resistance by mass hangings
and shootings of Serbian civilian hostages.

General
List, who in June became the Wehrmacht Commander Southeast, in charge
of Serbia and Greece, issued an order on the suppression of the revolt
on September 5:

In
regard to the above the following aspects are to be taken into
consideration:

Ruthless
and immediate measures against the insurgents, against their accomplices
and their families. (Hanging, burning down of villages involved,
seizure of more hostages, deportation of relatives, etc., into
concentration camps.)

On
September 16, Hitler issued a personally signed directive, Directive
No. 31a, to List charging him with the suppression of the insurgency
in Serbia:

I
assign to the Wehrmacht Commander…the task of crushing the insurrectionary
movement in the southeastern area. It is important first to secure
in the Serbian area the transportation routes and the objects
important for the German war economy, and then… to restore order…by
the most rigorous methods.

General
Danckelmann was held responsible for letting the Serbian rebellion
get out of control, and was relieved. List then recommended and requested
that General Franz Boehme, a pre-war Austrian officer who then commanded
the XVIII Army Corps in Greece, be commissioned to handle military
affairs in Serbia. A veteran of German military campaigns in France
and Poland, Boehme later served with the 20th Gebirgsarmee
in Norway. The entire executive authority for Serbia was transferred
to Boehme, who was made the Plenipotentiary Commanding General. He
remained subordinated to List, though.

Boehme
took command of all German troops in Serbia on September 19, and directed
all subsequent actions against the Serbian insurgents. The 342nd
Infantry Division was transferred from France, and along with the
100th Panzer brigade, deployed in Serbia to suppress the
insurgency.

Field
Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, chief of the supreme command of the German
armed forces, pursuant to Hitler's directive, sent instructions for
the suppression of insurgency movements in the occupied territories,
which List issued to his subordinate commanders:

Measures
taken up to now to counteract this general communist insurgent movement
have proven themselves to be inadequate. The Fuehrer now has ordered
that severest means are to be employed in order to break down this
movement in the shortest time possible. Only in this manner, which
has always been applied successfully in the history of the extension
of power of great peoples, can quiet be restored.

The
following directives are to be applied here:

(a)
Each incident of insurrection against the German Wehrmacht, regardless
of individual circumstances, must be assumed to be of communist origin.

(b)
In order to stop these intrigues at their inception, severest measures
are to be applied immediately at the first appearance, in order to
demonstrate the authority of the occupying power, and in order to
prevent further progress. One must keep in mind that a human life
frequently counts for naught in the affected countries and a deterring
effect can only be achieved by unusual severity. In such a case the
death penalty for 50 to 100 communists must in general be deemed appropriate
as retaliation for the life of a German soldier. The manner of execution
must increase the deterrent effect. The reverse procedure to proceed
at first with relatively easy punishment and to be satisfied with
the threat of measures of increased severity as a deterrent does not
correspond with these principles and is not to be applied.

It
is important to note that the Austrian-born Boehme harbored ill will
towards the Serbian people in general, because of their role in the
defeat of his homeland in World War I. The war itself was precipitated
by a Bosnian Serb's assassination of the Austrian heir, Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, in June 1914. In the subsequent invasion of Serbia, Austro-Hungarian
armies suffered two humiliating defeats and considerable casualties.
Not only did Boehme see the mass executions of Serbian civilians as
a way to suppress the rebellion, but also as retribution for Austrian
deaths during the Great War. His goal was no less than collective
punishment of the entire Serbian civilian population.

On
September 25 and October 10, 1941, Boehme issued orders to units under
his command that "the whole population" of Serbia was to be hit severely.
Where Keitel had made a vague reference to "the death penalty for
50 to 100 communists", Boehme's strict and rigid interpretation of
the directive resulted in the order that for every German soldier
or ethnic German outside of the Reich, a Volksdeutsche (ethnic German
living in Serbia), killed, a hundred Serbs would be executed:

If
losses of German soldiers or Volksdeutsche occur, the territorial
competent commanders up to the regiment commanders are to decree
the shooting of arrestees according to the following quotas:

(a)
For each killed or murdered German soldier or Volksdeutsche (men,
women or children) one hundred prisoners or hostages,

(b)
For each wounded German soldier or Volksdeutsche 50 prisoners
or hostages.

Boehme
also ordered that:

In
all commands in Serbia, all Communists, male residents suspicious
as such, all Jews, a certain number of nationalistic and democratically
inclined residents are to be arrested as hostages, by means of
sudden actions.

On
October 4, List issued to following order to General Paul Bader for
treatment of the Serbian population:

The
male population of the territories to be mopped up of bandits
is to be handled according to the following points of view: Men
who take part in combat are to be judged by court martial. Men
in the insurgent territories who were not encountered in battle,
are to be examined and, if a former participation in combat can
be proven of them to be judged by court martial.

If
they are only suspected of having taken part in combat, of having
offered the bandits support of any sort, or of having acted against
the Wehrmacht in any way, to be held in a special collecting camp.
They are to serve as hostages in the event that bandits appear,
or anything against the Wehrmacht is undertaken in the territory
mopped up or in their home localities, and in such cases they
are to be shot.

The
German punitive expedition focused on the Macva valley, between the
Sava and Drina rivers, centered around Sabac. Following List's order,
the executions of Serbian civilians and hostages increased and reprisals
against the Serbian population were conducted based on the ratio of
"a hundred to one."

General
Boehme ordered on October 4 and October 9 that Serbian civilians be
shot in the town of Topola.. Boehme sent List a report:

Executions
by shooting of about 2,000 Communists and Jews in reprisal for
22 murdered of the Second Battalion of the 421st Army
Signal Communication Regiment in progress.

The
Topola mass shooting was mentioned in the War Crimes Judgment at Nuremberg.

However,
List believed that the way to deal with the insurgency in Serbia was
to bring more troops to the area. Hitler and Keitel argued that terrorism
and intimidation of the population would suppress the resistance movement
without significant additional troops. List was thus not in agreement
with many of the pacification programs and policies of the German
High Command. On October 15, he was relieved for medical reasons.

The
Kragujevac Massacre, October 20-21, 1941

Kragujevac
is located at the political, cultural, educational, and industrial
center of Serbia known as Shumadija, on the Lepenica river, a tributary
of the Morava. In 1941, it had a population of 27, 249.

It
was first mentioned in the Turkish Tapu Defter as Kragujevdza
in 1476, as a village with 32 houses. By 1822, it had 283 houses with
a population of 2,000. Prince Milos Obrenovic made it the capital
of the Principality of Serbia between 1818 and 1839. The first Serbian
court was established in Kragujevac in 1820, the first high school
in 1833, the first theater in 1835, the first Lycee in 1838, and the
first electric power station in 1884.

In
1853, it was the birthplace of Serbian military industry, as a cannon
foundry was established with French assistance. Eventually, the military-technical
institute (Vojno Tehnicki Zavod) was established to coordinate
Serbian military production. The town's factories also produced military
vehicles, including licensed Ford trucks for the Yugoslav army in
the 1930s.

On
October 15, Mihailovic's forces captured a German platoon. The next
day, the commander of the 920th German regiment in Kragujevac
sent his third battalion to free the platoon. The relief force was
ambushed by both Mihailovic's and Tito's forces. Ten German soldiers
were killed and 26 wounded. The Germans then began reprisal of Serbian
civilians.

On
October 19, 300 civilians were executed in three surrounding villages.
All roads leading out of Kragujevac were blocked. All houses were
searched. All males between 16 and 60 were taken to district military
headquarters for identification, then to cabins overlooking the town.
Civil servants were rounded up from offices, and 300 students over
16 were taken from the high school, along with 18 teachers. The roundup
continued into the afternoon, with a total of 10,000 assembled.

100
men were shot early on October 20. According to the official report
by Gen. Boehme, 2,300 were executed altogether.(2)

Among
them was Laza Pantelic, headmaster of the First Boys High School (Prva
muska gimnazija). When he saw 35 of his students being led away,
he asked the German soldier:

"Where
are they being taken?"

"To
be shot" answered the soldier.

"I'm
their headmaster. Let them go, and take me instead."

"That's
impossible", replied the German soldier.

"My
place is not here  it's with my boys."

He
joined the students. They embraced and faced the firing squad together.

"Shoot,
I am still in class."

Students
from the Kragujevac high school were reported to have said: "We are
Serbian children. Shoot."

Throughout
October 20 and 21, German firing squads executed Serbian civilians
from Kragujevac. German troopers faced exhaustion, and some soldiers
were reported to have broken down from the mental and emotional strain
of mass murder. The Germans reportedly spared a few hundred townsmen
so that the horror could be spread to terrorize the population. Approximately
600 were kept at the execution site in Shumarica, where they buried
the dead for the next 4 days. The bodies were buried in shallow graves,
which allowed dogs to dig up the bodies and eat the remains. The graves
were later marked by Serbian Orthodox crosses, which were removed
after the war by the Communist regime.

The
German command office in Kragujevac announced on October 21, 1941:

For
every dead German soldier, 100 residents have been executed, and
for every wounded German soldier, 50 residents have been executed,
and before all others, Communists, bandits, and their assistants
were targeted, all totaling 2,300.

On
October 29, Felix Benzler, sent this report to his ministry:

In
the past week there have been executions of a large number of
Serbs, not only in Kraljevo but also in Kragujevac, as reprisals
for the killing of members of the Wehrmacht in the proportion
of 100 Serbs for one German. In Kraljevo 1,700 male Serbs were
executed, in Kragujevac 2,300.

Kragujevac
was not alone in its tragedy. The town of Rudnik was subsequently
razed. In Gornji Milanovac, the town was systematically destroyed
with incendiary bombs by the German forces. Only 72 houses out of
464 were left standing. In Kraljevo, railway and aircraft factory
workers were executed and the Germans reportedly shot one member of
each family in the town.

In
the villages of Meckovac, Grosnica and Milatovac, 427 civilians were
executed. In Draginac and Loznica, 2,950 hostages were killed. In
Kraljevo, 1,736 civilians were killed. These were reprisals for guerrilla
activity near Kraljevo.

A
telegram to the Plenipotentiary of the German Foreign Ministry from
the military commander in Serbia explained why civilians from Kragujevac
were chosen for execution:

"The
executions in Kragujevac occurred although there had been no attacks
on members of the Wehrmacht in this city, for the reason that
not enough hostages could be found elsewhere."

The
executions in Kragujevac were indiscriminate. Serbian civilians were
selected merely to fill the quota of one hundred Serbs for every German
soldier killed.

With
General List on medical leave, General Walter Kuntze was assigned
Deputy Wehrmacht Commander Southeast and Commander-in-Chief of the
12th Army on October 24. This was a temporary appointment,
until List could return to duty. On October 31, Boehme submitted a
report to Kuntze in which he detailed the shootings in Serbia:

Shooting:
405 hostages in Belgrade (total up to now in Belgrade, 4,750).
90 Communists in Camp Sebac. 2,300 hostages in Kragujevac. 1,700
hostages in Kraljevo.

Executions
of Serbian civilians continued well into the following year. Kuntze
in a directive of March 19, 1942:

The
more unequivocal and the harder reprisal measures are applied
from the beginning the less it will become necessary to apply
them at a later date. No false sentimentalities! It is preferable
that 50 suspects are liquidated than one German soldier lose his
life…If it is not possible to produce the people who have participated
in any way in the insurrection or to seize them, reprisal measures
of a general kind may be deemed advisable, for instance, the shooting
to death of all male inhabitants from the nearest villages, according
to a definite ratio (for instance, one German dead 100 Serbs,
one German wounded 50 Serbs).

Effects
on Resistance

The
Kragujevac massacre had a profound effect on the guerrilla resistance
in Serbia. On one hand, it reinforced Mihailovic's conviction to avoid
direct attacks against the German occupation forces. He told British
officer Christie Lawrence:

You
have heard of the result of my revolution last autumn…? Of the
hundreds of villages burned and the terrible reprisals that the
Germans inflicted on our innocent people? … When it was over …
I resolved that I would never again bring such misery on the country,
unless it could result in our total liberation.

The
Partisans, by contrast, were indifferent to civilian casualties. Their
ideology prevented them from seeing that German soldiers occupying
Serbia were not all Nazi party members, but conscripts who had no
choice but to serve in the Wehrmacht. They knew that violence against
the occupiers would invite reprisals that would result in massive
loss of innocent civilian lives. But the Partisans were also guided
by a political agenda. Their goal was to control territory, and set
the stage for a Communist takeover of the country.

Tito's
close associate Edvard Kardelj said: "Some comrades…have a fear of
reprisals destruction of villages, executions, and so on….In war
we must not be afraid of whole villages being destroyed." Tito himself
replied to Mihailovic's complaint that large-scale attacks against
the Germans would result in reprisals and the loss of innocent civilian
lives: "That's of no importance. I'm looking further ahead. The terror
will unquestionably lead to armed action…"

Communist
leaders replied to criticism of their callousness toward civilian
suffering by saying that if the Serbs perished in this war, there
were enough Chinese to settle Serbian lands.

In
short, the Partisans wanted to seize power. They were not concerned
if innocent civilians were killed. The end justified the means. So
long as a Communist dictatorship was created in Serbia and Yugoslavia,
the cost in human life was irrelevant. This very indifference towards
civilian casualties gave the Partisans an important edge over Mihailovic's
Chetniks in the struggle for post-war power.

Kragujevac
and the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials

General
Franz Boehme was captured on May 9, 1945 in Norway, and put on trial
at Nuremberg for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed
in Serbia  specifically, for the mass executions of Serbian civilians
in Kragujevac and adjoining towns and villages. He committed suicide
prior to his arraignment on May 29, 1947, by jumping off the fourth
floor of the prison.

The
process, known as the "Hostages Trial" (Case No. 47), was held from
July 8, 1947 to February 19, 1948. The defendants were German military
commanders who had ordered reprisal killings against civilians (or
hostages) in order to maintain order in occupied territories under
attack from guerrillas. Besides Boehme, Wilhelm List, Walter Kuntze,
Maximilian von Weichs, Hermann Foertsch, Lothar Rendulic, Helmuth
Felmy, Hubert Lanz, Ernst Dehner, Ernst von Leyser, Wilhelm Speidel,
and Kurt von Geitner were charged with committing war crimes and crimes
against humanity in Yugoslavia, Greece, Albania, and Norway.

They
were charged in a four-count indictment with unlawfully, willfully
and knowingly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity under
Article II of Control Council Law No. 10: "with being principals
in and accessories to the murder of thousands of persons from the
civilian population of Greece, Yugoslavia, Norway and Albania between
September 1939 and May 1945 by the use of troops of the German Armed
Forces under the command of and acting pursuant to orders issued,
distributed and executed by the defendants." They were further
charged in participating in "a deliberate scheme of terrorism and
intimidation wholly unwarranted and unjustified by military necessity
by the murder, ill-treatment and deportation to slave labour of prisoners
of and the civilian populations."

Murder
of hundreds of thousands of persons by mass executions of civilians;
that the defendants "issued, distributed and executed orders for
the execution of 100 'hostages' in retaliation for each German soldier
killed and fifty 'hostages' in retaliation for each German soldier
wounded."

Destroying
cities, towns, and villages by burning and leveling them

Summary
execution of POWs and the murder of relatives of those combatants

Murder,
torture, and systematic terrorization and imprisonment in concentration
camps of the civilian populations in the occupied territories.

These
acts were held to violate the 1907 Hague Regulations, international
conventions, the laws and customs of war, general principles of criminal
law, and the internal penal laws of the occupied countries which were
"declared, recognized and defined as crimes" by Article II of Control
Council Law No. 10 which was promulgated by the US, USSR, France,
and the UK.

The
Nuremberg court found Wilhelm List guilty on counts one and three
and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Walter Kuntze was found guilty
on counts one, three, and four, and received a life sentence. Hermann
Foertsch was acquitted and released. Maximilian von Weichs was severed
from the case due to illness. Generalfeldmarschall Ewald von Kleist
was extradited by Yugoslavia on August 16, 1946, tried for war crimes,
convicted, and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment. He was extradited
to the USSR in 1948, where he was found guilty of war crimes and sentenced
to life imprisonment. Kleist died in the Vladimir POW camp in 1954.

The
Nuremberg court found that hostages could not be taken and then executed
during a military occupation based on military expediency. "Every
available method to secure order" must be used before hostages can
be taken.

But
the court also found that the Serbian guerrillas were not entitled
to the status of "lawful belligerents," terming them instead franc-tireurs
(from French for "free shooters"). Thus, they were not entitled
to POW status. As franc-tireurs, upon capture the guerrillas
could be "subjected to the death penalty"  that is, summarily
shot.

The
court, however, rejected the defendants' argument of "superior orders".
The defendants argued that they were not responsible, because they
had only been following orders of those superior to them in rank and
power. In following superior orders, the court held that one must
show "excusable ignorance of the illegality" of the orders to be excused.
If one knows that the order is illegal and follows it, one cannot
use the defense. An order is illegal if it "violates International
Law and outrages fundamental concepts of justice."

The
court found that Wilhelm List and Walter Kuntze were following orders
they knew to be illegal and criminal, because the orders from Hitler
and Keitel violated international law and fundamental concepts of
justice.

The
executions of Serbian civilians at Kragujevac were thus found by the
Nuremberg Tribunal to constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Notes:

1.
As the "man who captured Belgrade," Klingenberg received
a Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross from Hitler, and became a celebrity
in Nazi Germany. He would be killed in 1945, when Russian and US troops
occupied Germany.

2.
The German military command in Serbia listed the number of executed
at Kragujevac at 2,300. After the war, the Communist regime inflated
the figure to 7000, for propaganda purposes. A more accurate estimate
for the total number of Serbian civilians executed in Kragujevac and
the nearby villages and towns is about 5000.